The Road Home: The First "Ryan's Corner"

Well, it's another night my friends. After closing down the local watering hole, AKA Tony's, I indulged myself with a little Mario Cart at a buddy's house. It was a chill night, but a good one none the less. After parting ways for the night with my bud, I began the occasionally long, but mostly great-tune-listening trek back to Myra. Tonight was no exception. I took the long way back to afford myself some additional tuneage. As I approached my destination that is Patty's driveway, my IPod was wrapping up a wonderful song:

 

As the track ended I sat in the front seat of my Toyota, and I decided to take a step out and ponder while listening to the coyotes singing their nightly chorus in the background. My first thought was about how much I love this song, but at the same time what and oxymoron the exact same thought was. You see, one of the repeated verses of the song states, "forget about my home, forget about my home." This is something I could never do. No matter where I may be, I could never forget about my home because it has always been such a wonderful place and a huge part of my life. As I stood in my driveway in the 22 degree weather smoking just one more Marlboro Blend 27 cig, my mind began to wonder, and a few more oxymorons came to mind. One in particular has been marinating in my mind for about a week now. One weekday night last week, I went driving around with some friends. On our little drive, which as you should know by now implies a backroad, we came across a field that took me back a number of year to my Senior year of high school. It brought to mind a memory from that time that involved both the same field and one of the very friends that was with me in the vehicle. Years ago, we had been partaking in the exact same form of entertainment. While in this field in my before mentioned friend's truck, his transmission suddenly went haywire. Now to those in the truck, it may not have been such a surprise coming from Old Red. You see, the only gear we could seem to use was that of the reverse variety. Far from town and with little cell phone service (I had only had a cell phone for about a year at the time), we did what we had to and drove in reverse from the pond damn in the field and back to my friend's family's farm house. Now being in that field again, near that same pond damn, I was helpless to my memory of the night that had occurred years before. As I thought about that night, another oxymoron came to mind:

Even when you feel like you are stuck in reverse, you can still reach your destination.

And this thought brought to mind the prophetic scripture that adorns a magnet on my mom's fridge that came as a gift from my GB. It reads:

"If you don't know where you are going... you'll end up someplace else." 

Now I know that some people may take this as a warning that you better have a good idea of where you're going, but I took it as saying that it doesn't really matter. If you don't know where you're going, you don't know where you will end up, and to me that spells a little adventure. You don't have to have life planned out, because the best parts are the ones you never expected; the ones that deviate from the plan. What a perfect token for present times. I feel like so many people I have spoken to lately feel lost. They may not have that life plan, and it's okay not to have such a thing. Who knows what life can lead to. It is the action of allowing ourselves the opportunity to be a little lost that will ultimately lead us to the next stage, the next adventure, the next chapter in what we all deserve to have: a long and exciting life. 

So as I look at the clock and realize I should be asleep (that and the fact that this post pretends to be coming from years of knowledge and actual life experience... ha ha), before I tear into what promises to be some amazing vegetable beef soup, I say let's seize the opportunity to be a little lost. The unknown promises to hold some unforgettable adventures and some amazing opportunities. Instead of looking to where the path we travel should or may lead, why not take a pause to seize the moment in which we stand.

And on a final note, I am not sure where the earnest tone came from tonight but I promise to post a much more entertaining memory tomorrow or the day after. I already have one in mind. And finally, I have always been a huge fan of green beans, but I must confess that I feel they do not belong in soup of any kind.

A Wedding, A Beastly Morning, and the Beauty of the Backroad

So earlier this month, two of my high school classmates, Ryan and Megan, took their leap into marriage. After years of dating they have tied the knot and said, “I do” to a life together. It was a great wedding, full of friends, dancing, fun, and of course, some drank. It was a wedding that their friends and family had been anxiously awaiting… and I must say the wedding was well worth the wait. What a fun night it was, and a great celebration of the newlyweds. Each Muenster wedding I attend, I find the true skill involved in avoiding the hazards of a beer slicked dance floor, that and the value of some comfortable shoes. 

 

 After many a brew at the wedding as well as at the after party at the local watering hole Tony’s, I was ready for bed. I would not realize which bed that meant until the next morning. I awoke around 10 am to a phone call from my mom. After taking a minute to absorb my surroundings, I realized I could answer her burning question of where I was. I awoke in the bed of what I am sure were the finest linens, colored pink and zebra stripe. I then realized the walls were also pink, the only choice when designing a room around pink and zebra sheets for a little girl. I then walked to the front door and realized where I was. I had slept in a girl’s bedroom in Saint Jo, the town to the west of Muenster, and… it was snowing. Needless to say, I was confused. Now as a disclaimer, I must say that the girl whose room I was in was not there. She spent the night at grandma’s house that night. I feel the need not to divulge the events that took place to bring me to such a place, but the short version is some friends needed a car to get back home, so I allowed them to drive my car home with me as a passenger. After waking everyone up, we headed east out of Saint Jo, a drive that provided lots of laughter and some very loosely pieced together memories of the night before. It was quite the morning.

Later that day, I decided I needed to take full advantage of the freshly fallen snow and met up with two of my good friends to ride around and take it all in on the notorious backroads that lie to the north of Muenster. To those who may not be familiar, that is what we do in Muenster. We grab some friends, perhaps some drank, a great playlist on the IPod, and a vehicle and head north on the gravel roads of Cooke County. Almost anyone you speak to in Muenster has taken advantage of these gravel roads and the amazing views they afford their travelers. It was a great day for a day road, and we were not the only ones with such a great idea as we passed many notable cars on our drive. Snow on the ground and snowscapes beyond every hill were the perfect setting for some great conversation and of course some sing-along to our favorite tunes. 

It was on that road with my friends that I re-discovered my affinity for the back road. Leaving all worries behind as you pass the city limit sign with only one obligation: stopping on the side of the road periodically to allow the passengers to relieve themselves. I could not have imagined a better way to appreciate the snow, other than being a young kid building a massive snowman and indulging in snowball fights. We were however able to get a peak into the latter. We were very entertained and surprised when we were ambushed on one road by a handful of kids armed with snowballs. As I looked to my left at the kids popping up from behind rocks and hurling snowballs towards my car, I was taken by surprise by the sound of a loud thump to my right. A rogue kid armed with a massive snowball hit his target, my passenger side window. That little event provided us all with some chuckles. As the daylight dwindled and the roads grew slightly icy, we indulged our appetites by eating some deer chili at another friend’s house in the Ville. Props to the chef. While there, I honed my skills in the extremely competitive sport of Foosball. Thanks to plenty of fierce competition, I have actually surprised others and myself by becoming much better. I always seem to surprise myself with my skills for mediocre sports, and thank God for that… ha ha. I never really was the sporty kind. After some good times in the garage and a handful of matches, we noticed the time and headed back to the Ster to call it a night. It was quite a long day, but very fun and a perfect end to the weekend.

That my friends is how you enjoy the snow in Muenster, that is the beauty of the backroad.